Many image recording systems are able to acquire both audio information as well as image information from a recorded scene. Image recording systems like video cameras are often used to record events, like a child's birthday party, or to make creative works like movies. Image information from the recorded scene is stored by the recording system on an appropriate media such as video tape, a hard drive, or an optical storage device such as CD-ROM or DVD-ROM. Management of the stored information from an image recording system is important, particularly as the quantity of recorded information expands.
Current image information management systems employ content analysis that automatically or semi-automatically (i.e., with some manual input and/or processing) determines important cue scenes using visual cues. Once content analysis is complete a user may use the resulting index to jump directly to scenes indexed during the analysis process. However, automatic indexing using image data requires extensive processing to locate objects, scenes, or other cues that may be included in a cue index. Large recordings and recordings with variable content and frequent scene changes are particularly demanding of processing time. Semi-automatic indexing only partially eases the processing time required for visual data, and requires user involvement in the creation of an index.